


anything else is a weak curse

by smallredboy



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Angels, Body Horror, Crisis of Faith, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Miracles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 18:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20970740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallredboy/pseuds/smallredboy
Summary: After a patient's illness suddenly disappears, the question of miracles turns into something much greater than the Department of Diagnostics expected.





	anything else is a weak curse

**Author's Note:**

> for fandomweekly's 26th challenge, _miracle_! this entry gained me second place!
> 
> enjoy!

“It’s a miracle,” Chase says without thinking twice, eyes wide as he looks at the new x-ray of their patient.

House scowls, seated across the table from him. “Oh, you must be joking,” he sneers.

Chase’s head snaps up. “How else would you explain this?” he scowls, the mere idea of it being a joke making his skin crawl. “Yesterday there were masses all over her lungs, now there aren’t. She’s cured, and we haven’t touched her. No surgery, no treatments she wasn’t already on, nothing.”

“There is always a logical explanation—” 

“Then explain it!” Chase exclaims.

“Maybe she has an intermittent disorder. Makes things harder to catch,” Foreman supplies.

Chase looks at him. “They are masses. It’s not something like intermittent porphyria. Why are you siding with House, anyway?”

Foreman doesn’t dignify that with a response.

“There is always a logical explanation,” House continues, not looking distraught in the least, “even if we haven’t found it yet. Science is always evolving, always changing— I’m sure in a few years they’ll know of a disease that causes masses to go away on their own.” 

“Perhaps we can name that disease after our patient, then,” Cameron deadpans.

Chase bites his tongue for a few seconds before saying, “House, you could see an angel with its wings and thousands of eyes and you’d somehow worm your way into thinking it was a man in a costume.”

“It’s good that such a thing will never happen, then, considering angels are not real.”

Chase’s face twists visibly. Like a switch being turned on, that comment seems to be what finally breaks his facade. His skin slowly peels off, revealing thousands upon thousands of eyes all over his body, his wings sprouting off and ripping apart his doctor’s coat. The disguise of humanity he has is still clinging to his body, his true hands sliding with old skin, his eyes twitching as they grow used to the light they haven’t seen in years.

“Are you sure of that?” Chase’s voice booms. 

House’s eyes are wide, watching relentlessly as his eyes blink, all in unison, the ones in his palms remaining closed. 

“What—”

“I decided to test out what would happen if I did a miracle of my own,” he says. “As it seems, your lack of faith is irreverent and unstoppable. It’s a little saddening, Gregory.” The only thing that remains of his human form is his hair, it flopping down his bright-light face, mouth open in an always silent plea. “You are not the only one to deny it all, but you are one of the few to get constant proof of how you should believe.”

House is shaking a little, biting his lip hard. “If you are capable of performing miracles, of curing people,” he starts, “then why have you not cured me?”

Chase’s mouth shifts into a grotesque smile that seems to go beyond the limits of his luminous face. “Because God hasn’t willed it.”

“What, because he doesn’t believe?” Cameron cuts in, her hands shaking against the table as she looks at Chase’s true form. 

“It is more complex than that,” Chase replies, picking at his old skin. “He does not allow me to cure the people close to me.”

“Close to you?” Foreman echoes, raising a brow.

Chase doesn’t deter in the least. “Those close to me,” he agrees. “House is close to me. Even if he does not believe in my...  _ species _ .” He smiles, the whole room bathing in his light. “I am sure I can turn that around.”

House still looks awfully pale, his whole body shaking as he stares on, boring his eyes into Chase’s true form. He stands up, stepping closer to him.

“You can touch,” he tells him.

He reaches for him, touches one of the few places without an eye covering it— his shoulder. He’s so bright, all radiance that could turn him blind if he stares at him for too long. 

“What do you think?” Chase asks, unblinking, all eyes staring right into House’s soul.

House shivers, looks down. A glint of shame appears in his ice blue eyes, the glaciers melting away. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t know what I think.”

Chase’s smiles becomes grotesque once again. All his eyes flutter shut, the eyelids going well and hidden with his skin as his human skin slides back into its place. Muscles, bones, skin— all of it becomes humanoid once again. His wings, fluttering above him, slowly disappear out of this plane of existence, feather by feather. 

Soon enough, he is Chase once again. No wings, no more than two eyes, his hair flopping down past his jaw. He is not a being of pure light, and his white coat doesn’t have a single scratch on it.

“We could talk about this over lunch,” Chase starts, voice devoid of that overwhelming power of before. “Tomorrow.”

Foreman, Cameron and House all nod, not daring to say a word.


End file.
